


bleed out in red ink

by charcolor



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Poetry, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, kinda???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcolor/pseuds/charcolor
Summary: red ink used to mark another X red ink used to write your name red ink for your grave red ink all over
Relationships: CUL & Fukase (Vocaloid)
Kudos: 13





	bleed out in red ink

**i.**

It doesn't really matter where the red came from.

It's fitting anyway, isn't it? He's always red, red hair, red eye, red blood, red scars, red clothes that protect the red lines under the red sky.

Red in the letters, red between the notebook lines. There's no excuse for any of that.

It's just a joke at this point. That's all the value he could possibly have, to be a reason for people to laugh so hard their faces turn red.

Red, red, red. It's everywhere you look. Under your nails, in the corners of your eyes, bleeding through paper and leaking through the floorboards.

Everyone sees red.

_You're not fucking special._

**ii.**

Cul crossed her arms as she leaned against the door frame, with a familiar sigh and half-closed eyes looking down on the boy in the bed in front of her. "Look, we gotta be at the bus stop in fifteen minutes. If you don't get up and get ready now, I'm leaving without you. I'm not gonna give you money for a bus pass again."

"Aw, man," Fukase sighed, very overdramatically, with a smile lurking in his face. "I have to _stay home_ from _school?_ "

"You already faked sick twice this trimester. You're just _asking_ to be expelled at this rate." Cul rolled her eyes and unfolded her arms to turn to leave. "Little shit. You're on your own today."

Fukase didn't have a chance to react. Once he heard the thud of the door downstairs and the faint clicking of the lock, he closed his eye again.

_It's probably for the better. You don't even know what's going on in any of your classes this week, do you? Better to avoid that than embarrass yourself again._

**iii.**

> _failure • noun • fail·ure | fāl-yər_

The rest of it is scribbled out by red ink.

Not that it matters.

**iv.**

"Ah, shit..."

Fukase didn't really think aloud very often. Only in times like this, when pain forced it out of his mouth. Not that it mattered--Cul was still at school, and she wouldn't be home for another five hours or so, and their parents were out all the time doing their own work.

Plenty of time to clean up this rancid mess of blood forming on the kitchen floor.

 _Well, fuckin'...that's what I get, huh?_ Fukase pulled himself up to sit on the countertop and examine his newly slashed arm. He'd cut deeper than he'd planned. He only wanted to cut just enough for it to leave a mark while also being easily rinsed off in the shower. This wasn't anything life-threatening, of course. Not even nearly as bad as when he'd cut up one of his eyes.

That was one thing Cul never ridiculed him or mocked him about. He was genuinely grateful for that, but he'd never say so. It'd probably just inflate her ego. Then again, she'd been there. She was the one who had to call an ambulance. She was the one who'd kept him company while he was lying in the hospital bed after they did surgery to take out his bloody eye. Not once did she insult him for what he'd done.

Why not, though? Wasn't that worse than getting bad grades all the time?

 _Maybe she'd leave me alone for the week if I left this cut open,_ he halfheartedly thought to himself, letting out a soft laugh. He did kind of like bringing out his sister's soft side.

It didn't really have anything to do with Cul herself. He just enjoyed being cared about, even though he didn't deserve it. He knew full well by now that he was selfish, but he didn't even care about that anymore. It was covered up by all the other reasons he hated himself.

Worthless, stupid, lazy, useless, hopeless...there was one fresh cut for each of those things, still bleeding a more modest amount down his other arm. This newest cut, the one getting blood all over the place--what would that be?

He supposed it would just be himself, a combination of everything wrong with him.

**v.**

The insects sleeping there buzzed alive at the thought of a crimson sun.

They poked and penetrated and punctured through everything, through bone, through veins, through skin.

But the light was too much to bear, and as soon as they looked upon it,

they were incinerated.

(Not that it matters.)

**vi.**

Cul was only fourteen when she'd found Fukase lying face-up on their kitchen floor, with blood trickling down his arms and gushing out his left eye.

Their parents always worked until much later than the school day ended, so no one else had seen him like that.

Of course, Cul had a complete breakdown. She didn't remember much of what happened after she found him lying there. She knew she called her parents, then an ambulance, and she knew she had slept in a chair in the room where he'd been recovering in the hospital. She remembered seeing the bandages around his left eye.

He didn't wear those anymore. Usually he used a glass eye, but if he wasn't leaving the house he tended to use an eyepatch instead. Sometimes he'd just leave his empty eye socket completely uncovered.

Cul didn't like when he did that. It reminded her too much of when that eye socket was full of his blood.

That was only two years ago.

Cul was only sixteen when she found Fukase lying face-up on their kitchen floor, with blood trickling down his arms and gushing out his neck.

**vii.**

black, white, black, white, flashing flashing until it filled up with red again.

don't blink don't breathe, the string is fraying,

because of your own dull blades.

foolish, foolish, foolish -- there's no escape for you.

## THERE'S NO ESCAPE FOR YOU.

and whose fault is that?

**viii.**

He felt blinding fluorescence, then a weight around his neck, then a burning collision against the right side of this face.

"Fucking idiot, you _fucking idiot!_ Are you just gonna keep trying to run away? Are you just gonna wait to drown in pity instead of learning to fucking swim?"

The weight thickened, and the striking red hair blurred into view. Her hands held to his neck, barely tight enough for it to sting.

"God, I should've known you'd end up here again! You're like a rabid dog, can't leave you alone or you'll try to rip apart everything you have!"

Seeing her get so worked up again, so enraged with him like always...he just couldn't help but let a weak chuckle escape his dry throat. "You _do_ always call me a feral bastard. I don't know what you ex--"

It caught in his throat when her grip suddenly tightened.

"How can you _laugh_ at a time like this? Is this a fucking joke to you? Is your life a goddamn joke to you? How can you--you felt so fucking sorry for yourself that you ripped up your eye and stabbed yourself in the neck, I almost watched you fucking die in our fucking kitchen--is that _funny_ to you? How do you have the _audacity--"_

It loosened, and he realized she'd been leaning over his hospital bed. She practically collapsed onto him, her tear-streaked face against his chest.

"How can you _laugh..."_

And of course, now, he couldn't. Whatever amusement had glowed in his face quickly faded. He should have been smiling. He loved being cared about like this, but...why was this wrong? 

Did he really care about his sister that much, too? If he really cared, why did he force her to watch his death scene? Why was it her responsibility to save him?

"You could have just let me die," he quietly pointed out. "You wouldn't have to worry about me anymore. You wouldn't have to take care of me anymore. Wouldn't you have wanted that?"

She didn't answer at first, only weakly gripping his blanket. She briefly glanced up when she responded. "You think I'd stop worrying about you when you're dead? I'd have blood on my hands, you idiot. Blood of a little boy who could've had a happy life."

"That blood's already on _my_ hands." He wanted to smile, but he couldn't bring himself to force it anymore. "I really don't have a chance to be that way anymore. I already ruined it."

"Then doesn't that make you the one who can turn it around?"

"And how the fuck would I do that, Cul? I take my meds, I go to therapy. What else do you want me to do? Yoga?"

She jerked her head back up to glare at him. "Maybe if you had some _patience_ you wouldn't be expecting people to instantly fix you up and make you all better. Maybe if you had some patience you'd stop making a huge show of how much you hate yourself. Maybe if you had some fucking _patience_ , you'd still have both your eyes."

Her head fell back to his chest, and nothing else was said.

**ix.**

On Sunday, Fukase woke up at two in the morning.

He was home now, with fresh scars adorning his neck and arms. Halfheartedly, he'd wondered if it was time to start wearing his scarves. They'd always been tangled up in his closet, waiting in desolation to be used for something. But now that his neck was free from bandages, he wanted to let the air over it for just a little longer.

In the dark, it didn't matter. Only he could see his scars, by pinpointing exactly when and where he'd made them.

He wondered, though, if that meant Cul could pinpoint where she'd witnessed the blood pouring out of him.

Her bedroom lights were off when he entered, but the moonlight shined over her bed, and he saw her wide open eyes look at him.

She stared like that for a moment, before looking away and shifting her body closer to the wall, leaving space for Fukase to climb in and lie beside her.

"Sorry," he muttered.

He felt Cul's fingers, slick with sweat, aimlessly rustle slowly through his hair.

"Gross," he added, a little more clearly, shifting to get Cul to take her fingers out of his hair. "Why're you so sweaty?"

"Nightmare."

Fukase turned his head to face her, but she was already gazing at the wall instead. "A nightmare?"

"It wasn't that bad. Don't worry about it." Cul pulled the edge of the blanket closer to her. "I know your sorry ass will go and pull that shit again at some point. I'll get used to it."

Fukase bit his lip. "I said I was sorry..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm sure you mean it. Really. That's not me being sarcastic. But...does that really matter? Does it really matter that I want you to be happy if you're not even gonna want to try?"

"I really don't think--"

A hand shot to his wrist, and gripped it deathly tight.

"There you go again. Shut up. Shut up about that nihilistic bullshit. You're only gonna hurt everyone by hurting yourself. Is that what you want? Do you want everyone to feel as miserable and hopeless as you? Do you want to be that catalyst?"

Fukase didn't know why something suddenly bubbled up in his throat, why everything suddenly blurred and stung. Cul didn't tell him. She didn't need to.

Wordlessly, she hugged him as he cried himself back to sleep in her bed.

**x.**

It really does matter, doesn't it?

He didn't understand empathy. He knew compassion, but he didn't think about it too much. The idea that anyone else could possibly feel the amount of hurt he had, when he barely even recognized the pain...it was numbingly confusing.

He didn't understand why he was crying so much, why he couldn't smile or laugh or force out a joke. The bottles had shattered, and he had torn himself to pieces on their shards.

He had no choice but to let someone try to help put some of the fragments back in place. They were always irreversibly crooked, and some could be gone forever, but that was fine. He just wanted _something_ back.

Red ink started to form circles on paper, and numbers a little bit higher than before, but despite having wanted it, he still felt nothing. A cycle of fake rewards for fake effort, it seemed.

Then, on a walk home from the bus stop, he noticed a single red lily blooming in between the cracks of the sidewalk, and he felt the first real smile in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if this story is too...weird, i guess. that's just how i was feeling


End file.
